My wife an I remember just enough high-school German to be able to speak in code around our kids. But, I wouldn't say we understand it. It's more like pidgin German. It's mostly for grins and giggles and doesn't mean much beyond that.

Some Hebrew, a fair amount of French, and a decent amount of German. I have only a few words of Spanish and am a beginner student of Italian.

What this means is that I am sad about all the wonderful literature and cultural information I cannot truly understand because language is so important to comprehending these things.

English is officially my second language, but it is my primary tool these days, and I feel very confident expressing myself. I speak two other languages with native (Portuguese) and near-native (Spanish) fluency. I speak passable Galician, iffy Italian (which is actually my first language) and even iffier French. My languages are my bread and butter, as a commercial translator & interpreter, my ability to pay my bills hinges on my language skills. I think as far as writing goes, I like writing in Portuguese the best. I like reading equally in all three languages, but if the book is written in any other language (German, Russian, etc.), I prefer English, because I don't ever find translations into Portuguese and Spanish to be quite as good (that is a controversial opinion).

My languages also mean frustration, especially as I grow older, and I find myself hunting more and more (often in English) to find the right words to express myself. It is a rare day I don't have a tab open on my computer set to thesaurus.com.
My languages mean that I feel most comfortable with other people who can "get" me in more than one languages. When I am expressing myself freely, I don't ever limit myself to any one language. But that's also got to do with never having had a "set" homeland, so I don't quite fit in entirely, or I am maybe too much of a chameleon, quick to change my skin to match my surroundings? I have some friends from similar backgrounds, and we often discuss the pros and cons of not being tethered too tightly by one language. My idea of a good time is teasing apart meanings and roots; I like hanging out with word nerds.

On a related note, I am leaving tomorrow for Miami on a mini-vacation before attending a translator's conference next week (so I've got languages on the brain!). Miami is awesome because you can spend days on end without ever resorting to English - the city runs on Spanish and increasingly, Portuguese (also Creole, but I don't speak that). It is such an amazing place, truly an international city. So I get to be with my people for a week, and it will be glorious.

My parents had always read some French-language kids' books to me, including a translation of Peter Rabbit (Flopseau, Trotseau, Queue-de-coton, et Pierre!) so I was unfazed by moving to Montreal when I was four. But I was vague about a few things, and occasionally tried to translate idioms directly. I remember my new neighbors laughing when I called one of the kids a "grande bouche" (big mouth). But there came a time when I was so fluent that no one realized it wasn't my first language.

I've learned a bunch of languages since. I can get by awkwardly in German and Spanish, and fumble less adequately in Italian and Swedish. Not coincidentally, those languages are spoken in places where I've spent enough time to have to use them. I studied a little Mandarin and Arabic and I suppose the rudiments of both are buried in my brain somewhere, but I never really relied on them and they're mostly gone.

I myself I'm in the NL. That's a small country so if we drive 150 km in any direction we leave the Dutch speaking world. As a result there used to be a strong culture of speaking French, German or English fluently. When I grew up there was an unspoken standard that we'd read English, German and French in the original language. So that's what I learned to do.
And then there are a lot of people who, while on holiday, have taken a shining to a different countries culture. And that comes with learning Spanish, English, Italian, French, Swedish, ...

For me English is the language of literature I enjoyed as a teenager and adolescent. Mostly pre WWII so I sounded a bit strange to native speakers. And it's also the language of my trade: software development.
I've read a lot of English. And I spoke it with my American partner for a few years. So I'm a bit frustrated that I still make mistakes when I'm not paying attention. And that my pronunciation tends to degrade to slightly clunky polder English when I'm tired.

German for me is the language from my mothers family. So when I'm in Germany it's a joy to interact with people there and exercise that muscle.

It's my experience that languages I learned early on (Dutch, German) have an emotional resonance and subtlety that is lacking with languages that you learn as a teenager or later.

Ofcourse Queue-de-coton is a rabbits name! :-)

None. I took German (I don't know why) in high-school and failed miserably and inexplicably took it again in college and got a D after spending 75% of my semester's study time on that one class. After that I gave up. My brain just doesn't do languages.

I speak a little French, enough to get by. I've learned that a French-English dictionary is more useful than a phrasebook. That's because I know how the sentences go together. But if I don't know the word for something, a phrasebook isn't likely to help me, whereas it's right there in the dictionary and I can slot it into the sentence.

Ha, I didn't know you're a translator msali.
My grandfather was a translator from Germany who spoke Russian, French, English and Dutch. I guess that influenced our family culture of speaking languages.

Octothorpe it sucks that your never got to the point where speaking a language is fun. Learning a language should be about speaking it, being immersed in it. Which is really hard to do when you're in the US and a thousand miles in any direction everybody only speaks English. And then learning a language tends to be a matter of only rote learning and discipline. Not very enjoyful. So don't judge yourself too harshly.

I speak French, and translate from it, so for me it's a living more than anything. I'm a translator but not the cosmopolitan type that msali is. I have a very strong first language and just one very proficient second language. Which is limiting in some ways, but also makes me a true specialist.

I like being able to fit into French life easily when I go there, and used to enjoy reading and studying French literature, but I don't do so much of that these days. Need to get back into reading French for fun rather than work!

One day I'd like to move to a German - speaking country as my German's in need of improvement if I'm ever to work with it. I understand it pretty well, but find producing it very hard.

I speak French, and translate from it, so for me it's a living more than anything. I'm a translator but not the cosmopolitan type that msali is. I have a very strong first language and just one very proficient second language. Which is limiting in some ways, but also makes me a true specialist.

I like being able to fit into French life easily when I go there, and used to enjoy reading and studying French literature, but I don't do so much of that these days. Need to get back into reading French for fun rather than work!

One day I'd like to move to a German - speaking country as my German's in need of improvement if I'm ever to work with it. I understand it pretty well, but find producing it very hard.

I speak French, and translate from it, so for me it's a living more than anything. I'm a translator but not the cosmopolitan type that msali is. I have a very strong first language and just one very proficient second language. Which is limiting in some ways, but also makes me a true specialist.

I like being able to fit into French life easily when I go there, and used to enjoy reading and studying French literature, but I don't do so much of that these days. Need to get back into reading French for fun rather than work!

One day I'd like to move to a German - speaking country as my German's in need of improvement if I'm ever to work with it. I understand it pretty well, but find producing it very hard.

I speak French, and translate from it, so for me it's a living more than anything. I'm a translator but not the cosmopolitan type that msali is. I have a very strong first language and just one very proficient second language. Which is limiting in some ways, but also makes me a true specialist.

I like being able to fit into French life easily when I go there, and used to enjoy reading and studying French literature, but I don't do so much of that these days. Need to get back into reading French for fun rather than work!

One day I'd like to move to a German-speaking country as my German's in need of improvement if I'm ever to work with it. I understand it pretty well, but find producing it very hard.

D'oh! My phone was telling me there was a database error, and in the confusion I posted that four times. Oops.

About 20 years ago I could get by very easily in conversational French, and read it very well. Now, I can read basic French and not speak it at all. Have to keep using those muscles.

I would very much like to learn Spanish, because then I could communicate with most of my neighbors and parents in my daughter's school (English is only spoken at home as a first language in about 20% of the families at her school). If I ever free up some time (ha!) that's what I'll devote it to.